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In a previous life I used to write about tax issues and how tricky even sophisticated multinationals found it to navigate this area. To the uninitiated I say, be afraid, be very afraid. One of the advantages of a freelance life is that I can pick and choose what to write about, more or less. Not having to write about transfer pricing and multinational tax strategies, almost, not quite, but almost makes up for the miserly health insurance for individuals that is the lot of most freelancers.

So it is with great reluctance I introduce the subject of global tax strategies in regards to Apple, mainly because – spoiler alert – it sheds just a little bit of light on a seemingly unrelated question that drives U.S. politicians nuts and Apple denizens into a frenzy: why can’t Apple manufacture in the U.S.?

The New York Times covered Apple’s complex tax practices in this article, de rigueur reporting during tax season in which companies such as Intel, General Electric and so on are put under the microscope to find out how the heck is it that they are able to pay so little, comparatively speaking, in taxes.

$2.4 Billion Saved

This weekend it was Apple’s turn and the Times’ reporting was thorough.

Apple—and no one should be surprised by this given its creativity in product design and retail—has been a trailblazer in creating cross-border tax strategies that are so novel and innovative that they are being copied by other multinationals. (Lucky for them a law was passed last year prohibiting the granting of patents on tax strategies, but I digress).

These tactics saved Apple—and its shareholders-- $2.4 billion last year, the Times said, citing a recent study by a former Treasury Department economist, Martin A. Sullivan.